There has long been an absolute conviction among social workers, statutory and voluntary, and politicians local and national, that taking a child into care is to be avoided almost at all cost. The unchallenged philosophy is that we should do everything possible to deflect children from the dreadful consequences of being looked after. That philosophy is founded on a classic confusion between correlation and causation. Yes, children in care have poor outcomes - in, say, GCSE results - sometimes unnecessarily so. But if most of those children had stayed with parents who either cannot or will not look after them, their life chances would probably have been worse. In some cases their lives would have been lost.

Indisputably, in the past, we have had too many children in care. As recently as 1981, there were 92,000. By March last year, not only were there many fewer (about 64,000) but only 10% were in residential homes. Such a transformation was, and still should be, seen as a triumph.

But I fear we have gone too far. Some time before the understandable horror over the death of Baby P, I was at a Barnardo's project and examining our work in advising a local authority whether three children could be returned to their birth family. Their care with that family had been scandalously neglectful. In foster care, however, the children were beginning to do well. Their health had improved and they were, for the first time in months, attending school. But the statutory and voluntary sector effort was geared to seeing whether this family could be fixed. In time, that might involve a return to a family home that could again descend into neglect. If our concern was solely the interests of the children, why would we take that risk?

It's not, as some would believe, about money. Fashionable as it might be to criticise them, the people who manage children's services in local authorities are determined, first, to do what is best for the child and, second, to manage the financial consequences. But, in deciding what is best for a child, social workers start from the presumption that life with a family means success and life in care means failure. To challenge this, at least until recently, has required some courage. Social workers from both sectors whisper to me that the best outcome for many children they work with would often be much speedier, permanent separation from inadequate parents, often followed by early adoption.

For a time, at least, social workers will find it easier to recommend more children to care. But, as our memories of Baby P fade, the default option for the public, fuelled by press reporting, will be to assume that social workers routinely, uncaringly or sometimes maliciously, tear families apart.

Social workers are not angels. But in terms of vocation, dedication and courage, they have impressed me hugely. They are paid modestly. They live professional lives more dangerous than the better-paid prison officers I used to manage. They seek, often against overwhelming odds, to manage the disadvantage and inadequacy of some families in our grossly unequal society. The burdens on them are immense. I have spent a few hours recently with an inspirational young social worker in his first year of employment with a local authority. Dedicated and idealistic as he was, he was unduly stressed and haunted by the consequences - the vilification which he feared would follow - of making a wrong decision.

Herbert Laming's report on child protection is published today. If nothing else, I hope he recognises the quality and dedication of social workers. They cannot take much more of a battering and we can't, as a society, do without them.